Thursday, February 21, 2008

Men's Bible Study Begins!

Last night was our first Bible study for men in the village of Montana. I left pretty certain that 2 of the men would be there and was hoping for a third. When I arrived at the home of one of the men [Man #1], his wife said told Damaso and I that he left in the morning and had not returned. She wasn't sure when he would be back. Then we yelled to the neighbor [Man #2] who was also supposed to come, and his wife looked out the door to say, she wasn't sure where he was. The third man [Man #3] was there, but I wasn't surprised by that. Damaso and I stood there and while I wondered, what are we going to do now, Damaso carried on in conversation with the first man's wife. Somehow they got talking about music and she walks out with a Micheal Jackson "Thriller" album (yes, the vinyl). [excuse the tangent, but...isn't that a collector's item?].

After a while, Damaso looks at me and says "What do you want to do?" I replied "Let's take some time and talk about our plans for future weeks." As we were doing that, Victor walks up. Now Victor is the only one that said he definitely would not be there this week, because he had to work. So, the 3 men that said they would come, are not there, but the one who said he couldn't come...is there! Maybe we should plan to meet when no one can make it?!?

Victor is a believer and so I explained to him our plan. As we were doing that, Man #3 shows up. At this point, we had been there for 45 minutes and time was running short. I am pleasantly surprised to see Man #3 and wanting to make the best of the remaining time, I suggest we talk a little about why we study the Bible and the format we will use.

I asked the question "Why should anyone study the Bible?" The men started answering right away and the 3rd man said "I don't know anything about the Bible. I haven't really read it, but I think that I should. If I study it, I will start to understand who God is." Ok...stop right there. Will you please pray that this man would discover who God is? Will you please continue to lift us up in your prayers? It is very obvious to us that we are in a war. The men in this country are missing out on the riches of knowing God. Please be in prayer that this man will continue to come to the study and that he will discover who God is.

After more conversation, I then ask "How is it that you can study the Bible?" Various answers were given and then I shared our method of using the questions [we shared these in a previous blog entry]. We then decided to try it with one verse and we looked at 1 Corinthians 10:13.

It was fun and exciting to open God's Word with these 3 men. During our study, the first man arrived home and joined us. He apologized and promised that he would definitely be there next week [but we know that that means!!!!]. Next week, we meet in the home of Man #3. We hope he is there!

Thank you for our prayers!

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